Help with Micro Taper

Hello,

 

I am interested in learning about micro taper. I've read about it on the forum, but am having trouble absorbing it and understanding how to go about it.  Not good at the math especially.  I just reduced to .5625 mg of Ativan in two divided doses. .25 in am and .3125 in pm. 12 hours apart.    I started at .5 mg twice a day.  Was on it 8 weeks when I began my taper.  So been on Ativan since mid march.  Having some interdose withdrawl on some days and trying to figure out how to handle that.  Otherwise, having all sorts of negative side effects from the drug itself so want off as fast and as smoothly as possible.  Does micro taper allow one to take two doses and split them into three?

 

I understand there are two ways to micro taper.  Liquid and gram scale. Is that right?  I cannot drink whole milk due to a digestive issue.  So if I went liquid would have to do water.  Can you do that?  I do have a gram scale. 

 

If I were to do this can someone with experience help me with the math and the taper plan. 

Can you do it dry with the scale and taper a bit each day?  How do you figure the math?  So far my cuts have been 12-16% and I've done okay, but had some rough patches.  I figured I go 10% the last half.  Not sure how that figures out daily with a micro taper especially since every 2 weeks you are figuring your next 10% based on the last dosage.  So how does that work with a micro taper?

 

Would appreciate any help here.  I'm new to forum and if you can direct me to posts that answer my questions or can actually help me with a personal taper plan I would appreciate. 

 

Thanks,

Sharkie

Hello,

 

I am interested in learning about micro taper. I've read about it on the forum, but am having trouble absorbing it and understanding how to go about it.  Not good at the math especially.  I just reduced to .5625 mg of Ativan in two divided doses. .25 in am and .3125 in pm. 12 hours apart.    I started at .5 mg twice a day.  Was on it 8 weeks when I began my taper.  So been on Ativan since mid march.  Having some interdose withdrawl on some days and trying to figure out how to handle that.  Otherwise, having all sorts of negative side effects from the drug itself so want off as fast and as smoothly as possible.  Does micro taper allow one to take two doses and split them into three?

 

I understand there are two ways to micro taper.  Liquid and gram scale. Is that right?  I cannot drink whole milk due to a digestive issue.  So if I went liquid would have to do water.  Can you do that?  I do have a gram scale. 

 

If I were to do this can someone with experience help me with the math and the taper plan. 

Can you do it dry with the scale and taper a bit each day?  How do you figure the math?  So far my cuts have been 12-16% and I've done okay, but had some rough patches.  I figured I go 10% the last half.  Not sure how that figures out daily with a micro taper especially since every 2 weeks you are figuring your next 10% based on the last dosage.  So how does that work with a micro taper?

 

Would appreciate any help here.  I'm new to forum and if you can direct me to posts that answer my questions or can actually help me with a personal taper plan I would appreciate. 

 

Thanks,

Sharkie

 

Water is NOT an option, as Ativan is NOT water soluble.  But there are several other options.

 

Ativan (lorazepam) is available as an Rx liquid.  Ativan can be dissolved in a tiny amount of vodka or propylene glycol, then diluted with water.  You can create a liquid suspension with OraPlus/OraSweet.  Or your doc can write a scrip for a compounding pharmacy to make a liquid.

 

Rx grade is the best alternative, but many folks have had great success with "homebrew" liquid using vodka or PG.

It's also pretty easy to do using crushed pills (dry) using a gram scale.  One advantage is that you don't need to worry about solubilities.  Another is that there is often a need to up-dose slightly when moving from solid to liquid.  Both solid and liquid are good methods, but don't switch back and forth between them.  Settle on one and stick with it. 

 

Your scale needs to be sensitive enough to be able to weigh 0.001 grams (= 1 mg). 

 

Basically, you weigh an intact pill.  It will weigh far more than the amount of medicine in it.  Then you calculate a ratio of how much pill does it take to equal a certain amount of drug.  For example, if a 1 mg pill weighed 150 mgs, then 0.25 of a mg of Ativan would weigh 0.25 * 150 = 38 mg.  0.3125 mg would weigh 0.3125 * 150 = 49 mg. 

 

I'm happy to help you with the math, if you need it.

Thank you for your answer and for offering to help with the math for a taper. Sorry for the delay in responding.  I thought I would get an email notification, but didnt and couldn't find my way back here.  New to forum.

 

I will probably try dry cutting then.  The liquid taper seems daunting to figure out and I can't use milk.

I am currently on .25 mg Ativan in am and .3125 in pm approx. 12 hours apart.  Based on my scale a pill weighs approx  .6 mg so my .25 pill weighs 3.0 and my .3125 pill weighs .37 currently.

 

I was going to continue microtapering by taking the .37 weight of my night time dose down to .36 for 2 days then .35 for 2 days and following, making the shift every 2 nights for 2 weeks until I was at .30.  Does that math make sense?  Then do the same to my daytime dose going from .30 to .29 and so on until getting to .22 which is basically a .0625 cut I think.  Let me know what you think.  Is my math okay or off?

 

On another note, I am having pretty bad interdose withdrawl after about 6 hours of morning dose and have to hang in for another 6.  It is getting really tough.  I don't see this changing when I make the cuts. Not sure what to do about that.  Any suggestions?  Thanks!

Thank you for your answer and for offering to help with the math for a taper. Sorry for the delay in responding.  I thought I would get an email notification, but didnt and couldn't find my way back here.  New to forum.

 

I will probably try dry cutting then.  The liquid taper seems daunting to figure out and I can't use milk.

I am currently on .25 mg Ativan in am and .3125 in pm approx. 12 hours apart. Based on my scale a pill weighs approx  .6 mg so my .25 pill weighs 3.0 and my .3125 pill weighs .37 currently.

 

I was going to continue microtapering by taking the .37 weight of my night time dose down to .36 for 2 days then .35 for 2 days and following, making the shift every 2 nights for 2 weeks until I was at .30.  Does that math make sense?  Then do the same to my daytime dose going from .30 to .29 and so on until getting to .22 which is basically a .0625 cut I think.  Let me know what you think.  Is my math okay or off?

 

On another note, I am having pretty bad interdose withdrawl after about 6 hours of morning dose and have to hang in for another 6.  It is getting really tough.  I don't see this changing when I make the cuts. Not sure what to do about that.  Any suggestions?  Thanks!

 

 

Liquid taper is certainly no more complicated than dry cutting/scales.

 

And I'm sure the weights you listed are wrong.  There is no way any tablet could only weigh .6mg.  And a .25mg tablet doe not weigh 1/2 of a .5mg tablet.  Tablet weight will not vary proportionately with tablet dose.

Sorry for not responding earlier.  I was on vacation for a couple of weeks. 

 

I'm not fully understanding your pill weights.  What dose are the intact pills that are you using?  How much does the intact pill weigh?

 

As for the interdose withdrawal thing - I have no recommendation for how to make the cuts easier other than to become better at mindfulness/distraction. 

Wow, you were only on for 7 weeks? I tapered off of usage like that in 12 days. I'm sorry you didn't get good info when starting you taper as you could have been off it a long time ago without any issues. I would get off it fairly quickly at this point as you are still at a low usage history, and dragging out the taper is not doing you a lot of good.